J Λ V Λ . E X E / https://personified / F:\PORT_RICHEY – Windows 92

Recommendation: ☹

The Windows 92 triple-split between J Λ V Λ . E X E, https://personified, and F:\PORT_RICHEY was released in mid-April 2016. J Λ V Λ . E X E is from Ontario, Canada; https://personified is from NYC; and F:\PORT_RICHEY is an alias of DMT Tapes FL founder/owner VitoJames – the label on which this split was released as a part of its second installment, DMT[REC].1 All three artists come together on Windows 92 for a diverse release of vaportrap, remix music, and classic-style vaporwave. Each artist contributed three songs to the release.

The first three tracks are vaportrap from J Λ V Λ . E X E. The songs are rather short and feature highly compressed beats like those used by PZA (e.g. “MSGを入”). They’re mixed extremely loud in the mix, which causes the rest of the music to decrease and increase in volume spontaneously, like a radio station that has turned the mixer all the way through redline, which sacrifices dynamic for loudness. The samples themselves are hypnagogic edits of guitar solos and other ambient-ish effects, which are decent but questionably congruous with the trap beats.

The second three tracks are vaporhop from https://personified; the track titles are all suffixed with different file extensions. This section starts with “start.exe”, which features the easily-recognizable (and much-used) Windows 95 start-up sound, which might have run its course by that point of the vaporwave scene. The following two tracks have a Blank Banshee 0-type feeling to them, and “baby making.avi” gets a classic-style vaporwave stutter at points that sounds like a CD skipping. The song’s progression makes it sound like a media artifact instead of something ostentatiously gimmicky.

The final three tracks are classic-style from F:\PORT_RICHEY. These works utilize pitch-/tempo-shifting of instrumentals from adult contemporary music and jazz, a technique with which VitoJames has carved an impressive niche for himself in the world of vaporwave – classic-style and otherwise. Those who have heard music from other VitoJames aliases (and there are literally hundreds) will likely recognize his sample curative tendencies. “LITTLE RIDGE XP” features a lonely jazz solo, too.

1The DMT Tapes FL label separates its release schedule into different “installments” based on theme and date, kind of like telepath with the 仮想夢プラザ releases but for a label instead of an individual artist. The first is DMT Tapes FL; the second, DMT[REC]; and the third, Verbatim Consciousness Recordings (a.k.a. VCR)2Japanese translation: “Web (Crawler)”3Japanese translation: “Enter (MSG)”4Japanese translation: “Processor Pasco”